Question

So I got some new network equipment and got a really strange issue, been on support to Cisco earlier trying to resolve this and they have no clue. I am going to try explain this the best I can. I have this Router/Modem combination from virgin media called the "SuperHub", it is an absolute pile of rubbish in terms of WiFi hence the new Router. They recently updated it allowing it to be put into "Modem Mode" which turns off all Router features and has only 1 port active.

I have connected the Cisco Linksys EA4500 Internet port to Port 1 of the SuperHub (the only port active in Modem Mode). I turned on the Router and there is no Internet connection unless I set my DNS servers to OpenDNS then it works, as I am using it right now through the router.

But the issue is, I have no features of my router because it cannot see that I am connected to the internet (see below)

[img]http://i.imgur.com/wIg9v.png[/img]

Also on the Diagnostics page it shows my IP Address as being 0.0.0.0

[img]http://i.imgur.com/MM3lo.png[/img]

This is what I have setup to get access to the internet

[img]http://i.imgur.com/Jjz7T.png[/img]

But it still isn't clearly working properly, for some reason some Apple services are failing to connect and I don't have features like "QoS", "Device List", "Guest WiFi" simply because the UI needs Internet access to display those features with "Cisco Cloud".

I am completely lost, I never thought it was so hard to setup a new router, I blame the so-called "SuperHub". According to Cisco theres no issues with the SuperHub and this router.

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50 answers to this question

[quote name='BudMan' timestamp='1349350455' post='595224873']
Before everyone goes blaming the router - so did you do a sniff with your pc, and they are not handing out dns option in dns??

Did you try removing the cloud aspect of the router with the standalone version of the firmware? Then it should not matter that the router can not lookup cloudcisco or whatever its trying to lookup.
[/quote]

I will be trying the sniffing thing with wireshark later today with the Modem in Modem mode. Yes I had the version without Cloud installed on the router before, I had the full interface that time because it doesn't rely on Cloud but some features still don't work properly like for some reason its affecting certain Apple services on the Mac.

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So when you were using the standalone version it showed you what your internet IP was? Well WTF are we dicking with the cloud version for then?? Put that back and we can look into what issue you were having with apple services??

Did it dns work in this mode - or were you still not getting dns from ISP? Please post your sniff test with pc connected to modem and doing so we can see the dhcp offer that they are sending you and if it contains dns.

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[quote name='BudMan' timestamp='1349367870' post='595225411']
So when you were using the standalone version it showed you what your internet IP was? Well WTF are we dicking with the cloud version for then?? Put that back and we can look into what issue you were having with apple services??

Did it dns work in this mode - or were you still not getting dns from ISP? Please post your sniff test with pc connected to modem and doing so we can see the dhcp offer that they are sending you and if it contains dns.
[/quote]

No it did not show my IP on the router in the non cloud version too, but according to virgin medias SuperHub page, when it is in Modem Mode the IP Address on routers sometimes do display "0.0.0.0" i don't know why this would happen???

I will reply soon with the sniff test with the superhub on its router mode, and what it shows on its modem mode. Not able to do it right now.

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that makes no sense at all that router would show 0.0.0.0 -- have never ever ever seen anything like that. I looked at that page you linked to and stated that in that mode it would act like a normal docsis 3 cable modem. Well every single cable modem I have ever seen when you connect a router to it -- it shows an IP!

It has to have an IP, so why would it not show it? Seems like a bug in the router firmware if you ask me, but for the life of me can not figure out what it could be - dhcp is standard protocol, not sure what they could be doing that would prevent the router from listing what IP it got.

Someone mentioned something about IPv6 - I wonder if your getting an ipv4-mapped to Ipv6 address.. So something like

::ffff:192.0.2.128 represents the IPv4 address 192.0.2.128

And this is why its not showing the ipv4 address?

So can you do a traceroute while router connected to modem. you won't see the wan side of the route in the listing, but will see the isp hop.. So for example

So you see my router there at 192.168.1.253, then next hop is 24.13.xxx.1

This is my isp gateway. Now when you showed your pc getting an IP it was on a /24 so your IP would have to be somewhere in the /24 that the isp gateway falls into.

After we see the sniff test, another test we could do is if you have hub or switch that can do port mirroring/spanning - you could hook up a pc between your modem and router and sniff the traffic so we would be able to watch the dhcp communication, and then normal traffic and see what IP your router is using - maybe its using a ipv4-mapped IPv6 address for communication to your isp?

I would put the noncloud version of the firmware back on - and we can work out your issues with your apple stuff. Even if you don't see ipv4 address, there really is little reason for router to be able to resolve anything itself - other than it normally uses the dns it got from isp for dnsmasq/forwarding etc. But not really that big of deal to have your clients go directly to an outside public dns, 4.2.2.2, opendns, googledns, etc. Or you could always run your own local dns on your network and have it forward to your isp dns, etc.

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For anyone else wanting to look or if anyone else who has experienced an issue like this before, I did a Wireshark scan over Teamviewer with BudMan and he can confirm something odd is up and no DNS is being received from my ISP, check log here:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/AwYX2.png[/img]

In process of trying to contact Virgin Media my ISP about this.

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[quote name='SuperKid' timestamp='1349297792' post='595223585']
and the 3rd option may well be, because my ISP has full control over this "SuperHub" firmware, it is so locked down you can't change the DNS yourself when you wish to use your own, I reckon that the reason why DNS servers are not been provided in Modem mode is because the DNS servers are in fact hard coded into the firmware of the SuperHub itself. (Virgin Media can send firmware updates out to the SuperHub whenever they want and it will automatically update once plugged in).
[/quote]
No and here

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"your device will still be able to override what DNS you wish to use."

I don't think your understanding the issue. While I agree with you that when hub in router mode, or he attaches a router to the hub (in modem mode) that clients will use the dns and gateway handed to it by the dhcp server of either the router or the hub in router mode - and that can be set to use whatever dns he wants. This is all fine and good.

His problem is that his router requires it to resolve specific urls by itself, not the clients -- it looks for some ciscocloud.tld to verify its on the internet - and when the ISP (hub in modem mode) does not give the router DNS to use - it thinks its not on the internet because it can not resolve and then get to whatever cisco site its trying to get to.

His ISP per his test of directly connecting his PC to the hub (in modem mode) -- gets an IP and gateway from the ISP dhcp, but NO DNS information is handed out from his ISP dhcp. We have verified that NO dns information is being given out by the ISP.. Which is why his router is having an issue while in cloudmode -- it needs a dns handed to it via dhcp.

If he double natted his connection and put his hub in router mode, and then connected his router his issue would be gone - because the cisco router would use the hub lan IP as its dns - and the hub in router mode would forward to what seems to be a hard coded dns server(s)?? Since clearly his ISP is not handing it out via dhcp.

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[quote name='BudMan' timestamp='1349456791' post='595227897']
If he double natted his connection and put his hub in router mode, and then connected his router his issue would be gone - because the cisco router would use the hub lan IP as its dns - and the hub in router mode would forward to what seems to be a hard coded dns server(s)?? Since clearly his ISP is not handing it out via dhcp.
[/quote]

I did consider that but then I might as well really throw away the ea4500 and use this ****ty SuperHub. Plus it has history of corrupting downloads which are something like over 3gb its a complete peice of rubbish.

[quote name='hjf288' timestamp='1349457371' post='595227919']
What super hub firmware are you on? It's the buggiest pos ever but is usually fine in modem mode... Just tell them it keeps freezing and they should send you a new one
[/quote]

r36, I would be on the latest virgin has pushed out as I have rebooted the modem since and the SuperHub auto updates

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What does the SH have to do with they are not handing out dns via dhcp -- would not matter what modem he uses.

Its not really a problem, he could always just set dns -- where its a issue is that he can not tell his router what dns to use to lookup the ciscofqdn it wants to lookup. Because its limited to only setting it via dhcp on the wan interface.

I don't get why they don't hand out dns via dhcp - every other isp I have ever seen hands out this info. Why are they not, would seem to be an issue on this scope - because someone else said they are using the same isp and they get dns via dhcp.

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[quote name='BudMan' timestamp='1349520967' post='595229509']
What does the SH have to do with they are not handing out dns via dhcp -- would not matter what modem he uses.

Its not really a problem, he could always just set dns -- where its a issue is that he can not tell his router what dns to use to lookup the ciscofqdn it wants to lookup. Because its limited to only setting it via dhcp on the wan interface.

I don't get why they don't hand out dns via dhcp - every other isp I have ever seen hands out this info. Why are they not, would seem to be an issue on this scope - because someone else said they are using the same isp and they get dns via dhcp.
[/quote]

I am not sure how it works myself but I am just guessing and not sure how to explain it either, but I know that Virgin Media has these conditions:

1) If the Mac address is changed of the router or modem, a new IP Address is given out
2) If the old IP Address is not used within 7 days it is released to be reused by someone else

Because when I put the modem back into SuperHub mode, my old IP Address comes back because the SuperHub mac address is different to the EA4500 of course, so as I swap I get the 2 different IP Addresses.

Now the gateway (is that the router that should hand out the DNS?) is my current ip .1 on the end so like IP is 77.98.70.199, gateway is 77.98.70.1 this IP Address displays as a completely different location as to my previous IP Address which is why I was a bit confused as to why FB was saying I am logging in from Walsall which is quite far out.

If I clone the Mac Address of the SuperHub on my EA4500, it should renew or at least use my old IP Address? would this cause it to use a different router and it may get around the issue?

[i](just to clarify, i am phoning my ISP about it but I will be doing so on Monday, no UK support during weekends)[/i]

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I haven't read all the stuff on this but here's my experiances when I was using NTL home/business with the old Ambit 2050 modem; On home it was locked into client mode, you couldn't change it, it would give the IP to whatever was connected but if you just had a switch and 2 PCs it wouldn't work as one PC would get the IP and it'd ignore the other so you had to use a router.
On NTL Business you get the same, but you get 5 IPs and use a switch instead of a router (well you can use a router if you want to share one public IP amongst more than 1 PC) and it'd lock to the MAC address (and you had to use the ACORN site to fully register the MAC to a permanenty public IP).
In both cases the cable modem would dish out the client IP, gateway details, DNS servers, etc.

I know they wanted to replace the ambits because apparently it was easy to get on their system so I'm guessing it's got much harder with the superhub, so hard in fact you can't do much

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[quote name='n_K' timestamp='1349521960' post='595229521']
In both cases the cable modem would dish out the client IP, gateway details, DNS servers, etc.
[/quote]
Cable modems don't dish out the client IP that are WAN IP or the gateway or the DNS servers the cable modem is just a means to convert DOCSIS to Ethernet this applies to any and all cable modems or in the case of the super hub only when its in modem mode.

All client IP that are WAN IP or the gateway or the DNS servers are sent from the gateway from the DHCP at the ISP end.

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[b]I have fixed it and got around the issue[/b] behold, full router interface!

[img]http://i.imgur.com/YkTcp.png[/img]

I did what I thought might work, I connected my PC directly to my Modem and I used a tool to randomly change my mac address, which forced my Modem to change its IP Address, and behold I got two IPv4 DNS Servers popup on my computer, it looks like Virgin has some issues with its network where some are not handing out any DNS addresses!

I set in the EA4500 "Clone mac address" to Enabled and typed in the Mac address my computer is using, and boom the ea4500 works fully now.

But I am using 77.100.174.* IP Address now and the gateway must be 77.100.174.1 and its handing out DNS addresses, I will wait 2 weeks now and let my other IP Address expire then try turning the Mac address cloning off and see if it hands out a new IP Address and see if that one is working.

Should I still contact my ISP about this because now its working for me I guess it will be harder to solve?

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so your clearly coming off a different dhcp scope if your getting a different netblock for your IP before you got a 77.98 address with no dns.

Is it the same dhcp server? Curious before it was 62.253.131.161, I would send the sniffs you did showing that server was not sending dns in its options.

But now that you have it working shouldn't be a problem - I would assume most of their users are using their product for their routers so highly unlikely too many other users running into the issue you found.

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[quote name='BudMan' timestamp='1349533287' post='595229781']
so your clearly coming off a different dhcp scope if your getting a different netblock for your IP before you got a 77.98 address with no dns.

Is it the same dhcp server? Curious before it was 62.253.131.161, I would send the sniffs you did showing that server was not sending dns in its options.

But now that you have it working shouldn't be a problem - I would assume most of their users are using their product for their routers so highly unlikely too many other users running into the issue you found.
[/quote]

Yes I think I am most likely coming from a different dhcp scope now. Must be something somewhere and I am now just contacting a different DHCP server. I'll try my best to contact virgin media and give them the logs too with the IP Address, if they look into it they should see straight away the issue.

EDIT: They only recently just started upgrading my area to support faster speeds so I can only assume somebody has broken something.

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[quote name='BudMan' timestamp='1349520967' post='595229509']
What does the SH have to do with they are not handing out dns via dhcp -- would not matter what modem he uses.

Its not really a problem, he could always just set dns -- where its a issue is that he can not tell his router what dns to use to lookup the ciscofqdn it wants to lookup. Because its limited to only setting it via dhcp on the wan interface.

I don't get why they don't hand out dns via dhcp - every other isp I have ever seen hands out this info. Why are they not, would seem to be an issue on this scope - because someone else said they are using the same isp and they get dns via dhcp.
[/quote]

Because his ISP DOES hand out DNS via DHCP but for some reason he ain't getting it. (I'm on the same ISP)

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Dude -- what part about showing you the actual SNIFF of the traffic from the dhcp.. IT WAS NOT THERE!!

Yes I agree his isp hands it out, he got it when he changed his mac, but was not getting it before - we looked at the dhcp offer from his ISP, no dns in it.

Sorry but sniffs do not lie, there was NO dns option in the offer! Nothing would filter out just specific options in the offer - so his isp was not sending. It is quite easy to forget something on the scope.

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[quote name='hjf288' timestamp='1349540845' post='595230027']
Because his ISP DOES hand out DNS via DHCP but for some reason he ain't getting it. (I'm on the same ISP)
[/quote]

Virgin are do provide some sort of DNS via DHCP otherwise nobody would be able to browse the internet when connecting plainly to the Modem... the issue I had was it wasn't being sent, DNS was blank. Your getting correct DNS settings because you will be hitting a different router somewhere else.

[quote name='BudMan' timestamp='1349541114' post='595230035']
Dude -- what part about showing you the actual SNIFF of the traffic from the dhcp.. IT WAS NOT THERE!!

Yes I agree his isp hands it out, he got it when he changed his mac, but was not getting it before - we looked at the dhcp offer from his ISP, no dns in it.

Sorry but sniffs do not lie, there was NO dns option in the offer! Nothing would filter out just specific options in the offer - so his isp was not sending. It is quite easy to forget something on the scope.
[/quote]

I been told on the virgin forums that my post has been flagged for urgent attention and there are techies on there who can actually look at the information so we will hopefully find out Monday.

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[quote name='BudMan' timestamp='1349541114' post='595230035']
Dude -- what part about showing you the actual SNIFF of the traffic from the dhcp.. IT WAS NOT THERE!!

Yes I agree his isp hands it out, he got it when he changed his mac, but was not getting it before - we looked at the dhcp offer from his ISP, no dns in it.

Sorry but sniffs do not lie, there was NO dns option in the offer! Nothing would filter out just specific options in the offer - so his isp was not sending. It is quite easy to forget something on the scope.
[/quote]

Dude, what part about VIRGIN GIVES OUT DNS VIA DHCP do you fail to comprehend? Even if it is one misconfigured server, THEY DO IT across the network or are you being deliberately obtuse?

The Superhub is notoriously buggy for corrupted downloads, having broken firmware - the relation being, It could have been a Superhub issue stripping or not picking up the DNS, it really is that crap.

In all likelyhood it's a single misconfigured DHCP server judging from his further updates on the matter.

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[quote name='hjf288' timestamp='1349544674' post='595230085']
Dude, what part about VIRGIN GIVES OUT DNS VIA DHCP do you fail to comprehend? Even if it is one misconfigured server, THEY DO IT across the network or are you being deliberately obtuse?
[/quote]
Thats all is was VM had a misconfigured DHCP server for handing out DNS its likely fixed now so nothing to fail to comprehend because that was the problem and was the point being made.

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"Superhub issue stripping or not picking up the DNS, it really is that crap."

Sorry dude it doesn't work like that! I don't care how freaking crappy it is, which I believe you when you say its crappy. Sorry it can not strip out options in a dhcp offer packet.. It just can not.

And I agree with you that in general they hand it out - but in this case they were NOT. The SH had nothing to do with the issue. This was clearly shown when he connected his pc and did a sniff of the whole dhcp transaction, discover, offer, request, ack, etc. No dns in the offer! Now in his case he is showing the ack, but he sent me the full file - and we looked at it on his machine via tv, and nope no dns in the offer.

glad he got it sorted. And hope with his trace he posted, they will fix the dhcp scope that was misconfigured for the next guy.

This is exactly how you want troubleshooting issues to go, find the root cause of his problem - in this case no dns in the dhcp offer that his router needs to contact cisco with so it knows its online and can phone home, etc. Find a work around, he changed his mac to use a different scope. Report the problem to the proper place to get it correctly fixed.